Twenty-five open-source network emulators and simulators you can use in 2023

• labrea

  1 106 10.0 C

  Scripting other people's programs.

there's labrea which is pretty dusty: https://github.com/dustin/labrea

you could probably achieve something similar with bpf today.

• Comcast

  29 10,222 0.0 Go

  Simulating shitty network connections so you can build better systems.

And comcast: https://github.com/tylertreat/comcast

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

• toxiproxy

  25 10,300 6.7 Go

  :alarm_clock: :fire: A TCP proxy to simulate network and system conditions for chaos and resiliency testing

  

I use this to simulate delays between various local services:

https://github.com/Shopify/toxiproxy

If you have Docker all you need is a few terminal commands

• core

  4 637 6.4 Python

  Common Open Research Emulator (by coreemu)

  

CORE has been updated twice since the list was created. It’s actively maintained. CORE emulates mobile, changing networks like IoT devices, phones, or network-connected vehicles.

GitHub - https://github.com/coreemu/core

Community Discord - https://discord.gg/AKd7kmP

• dummynet

  1 144 0.0 C

  Automatically exported from code.google.com/p/dummynet

IPFW dummy net in FreeBSD was amazing for this. I haven't used it in 20 years. On my home DSL line in the 90s I would get so many hack attempts that it was becoming a nuisance, so I filtered ICMP through a dummy net that both delayed and dropped 10% of the packets. Hack attempts went to zero in 3 days.

Luigi Rizzo is a top notch hacker.

https://github.com/luigirizzo/dummynet

• systemd

  510 12,457 10.0 C

  The systemd System and Service Manager

  

I use sqm-scripts for a variety of purposes to insert delay or other variables like aqm and fq technologies.

I also wrote a now somewhat out of date cautionary note about all the pitfalls you can land into here: https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/codel/wiki/Best_practic...

And over here, while we convinced systemd to adopt fq_codel by default, I cautioned against drawing conclusions from within the box simulations verses the general internet's behaviors: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/9725#issuecomment-...

I am perversely glad measuring this stuff irks so many other people besides me!

• mn-wifi-ebook

  3 21 10.0

Brian Linkletter's website is one of the best portal if you want to learn network simulation and emulation.

From the provided list, I think the most promising and realistic open source network simulator and emulator is Mininet due to its lightweight approach capable of running off-the-shelf Linux OS and software. In addition it has thriving eco-system that made it unique, accessible and prime for wide adoption for examples:

a) It's currently actively being used to simulate and emulate smart city project by its original author to improve urban networking [1].

b) It has open learning materials resources from open source book (Mininet-WiFi) and open lab instruction (Mininet-SDN) [2],[3].

c) It has the lightweight feature enabling it to simulate very large number of nodes using the nested container capability as demonstrated by extensions created by third party simulation tools namely NestedNet and ComNetsEmu [4],[5],[6],[7].

[1] SigComm 2022 Cosmos Testbed Tutorial:

https://wiki.cosmos-lab.org/wiki/Workshops/SigComm2022

[2] Mininet Wi-Fi book:

https://github.com/ramonfontes/mn-wifi-ebook

[3] SDN Labs using Mininet manual:

http://ce.sc.edu/cyberinfra/workshops/Material/SDN/SDN_Labs....

[4] Network Virtualization and Emulation using Docker, OpenvSwitch and Mininet-based Link Emulation:

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/985/

[5] NestedNet: A Container-based Prototyping Tool for Hierarchical Software Defined Networks:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9244858

[6] ComNetsEmu: A Lightweight Emulator:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97801...

[7] A virtual emulator/testbed designed for the book: Computing in Communication Networks: From Theory to Practice (2020):

https://git.comnets.net/public-repo/comnetsemu

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

Suggest a related project